Free Almost Alive (The Beautiful Dead Book 3) by Daryl Banner

passes before I hear the quiet click of a door, two hearty laughs, and a clasping of hands. I jump up from my chair and rush to the hall. Standing there is a potbellied man in a beige suit, shaking the hand of John.
    John faces me, his eyes beaming and happy, and when he sees me, his smile grows. He’s been dressed in a clean button shirt with dress pants, shiny black shoes, and his hair is styled neatly, parted to the side with a subtle wave. His face is the only thing I seem to recognize; perfectly restored to the John I used to know, minus perhaps a bit of his signature stubble. His eyes flash cheerily and I see that the grey one is, surprisingly, still a bit off-colored.
    “Winter!” he exclaims, like I’m the best person in the whole wide world and he’s happy as a squirrel to see me. “How do I look??”
    He’s a completely different person. Some gentle, kind, bright-eyed spirit has possessed the body of the otherwise brooding, hardened, tortured man I used to call John. This new person in front of me is, no doubt, handsome and dashing and—now after his impressive Upkeep—undeniably sexier. John was a very attractive man as a dirty Living; he’s even more so as a cleaned-up, dressed-up, snazzy-as-hell Unliving.
    Why haven’t I told him yet? Why hasn’t anyone told him yet who he was? … who he is? The love of my life, the love of my unlife , standing before me and without a clue. I should’ve told him the moment his hand clasped mine in the Whispers. I should tell him right now.
    “You look great,” I tell him instead.
    I’m impressed by the transformation from his broken, decayed form to this mended, firm, muscular one. His build looks returned to how it was the first day we met. It was in a tavern that was, unbeknownst to me at the time, about to be raided by bloodthirsty Deathless. I’m grateful that the doctor was kind enough, clearly, to honor the body John had in his life. Doctor Collin was, after all, familiar with John’s body. I wonder if he realized it was not the first time that particular doctor cared for him.
    I make a mental note to thank Collin later.
    The potbellied man decides to give John another firm handshake right then, offers him a sheet of paper and says, “Your first shift starts in two days’ time, so that you may become better acclimated to the city of New Trenton.” John thanks him quietly, then faces me, his eyes flashing with excitement.
    I’m looking into his bright eyes—the rich brown one, the soft grey one—when he says, “Did you hear that? They’ve given me a job.” I lift my brow with interest. “I’m going to be a bartender.”
    I wait for John to say he’s joking. He isn’t.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

C H A P T E R – F O U R
    W E L C O M E
     
    Seated on the curb outside of my apartment complex, bored, useless, my chin’s propped up with bored, useless hands and my elbows are upon my bored, useless knees.
    Two Human kids racing by stop when they see me, and one of them, a boy with black hair, starts to laugh.
    “Stop laughing,” I snap at him, annoyed.
    The other starts to laugh now, another boy with a mess of sandy hair to his neck. He says, “You’re dead.”
    “Mostly.”
    “My mommy said the dead should be buried and stay buried.”
    “Your mommy’s smart,” I say bitterly, staring at their feet.
    The black-haired boy chimes in. “ My mommy said I’m not allowed to talk to any. But I do anyway.” He throws a stick up in the air, catches it. “I’m Freddie.”
    “I’m dead,” I answer back. It’s been hours, maybe even a day, since John and I parted. They gave him an apartment in some other section of the Neighborhood. I’d considered why they’d put us so far apart, then realized that either the Housing Manager didn’t know better, or they assumed since John has no memory of his First Life that he should be treated as a new person—and not as the man I love. I had half a fight with Ann and a tired yelling match with a